


Gateaux Prime

by aralias



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Cake Fic Meme, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-08 00:13:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5475803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aralias/pseuds/aralias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deva makes the mistake of going on a mission with Blake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gateaux Prime

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liadt bunny (Liadt)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liadt/gifts).



> This was one of the more difficult prompts of the year. I was going to cop out and do a PGP restaurant!AU, but then your Fandom Stocking reminded me that you don't like that sort of thing. Fortunately it also reminded me what you _did_ like.

“This is the last time I agree to come on a ‘simple fact finding’ mission with you, bounty hunter,” Deva groused. He blew irritably at his fringe, which had fallen into his eyes as usual, and a cloud of powdered sugar rose up, briefly, from his hair before settling back down again. “What did you say your plan for getting out of this was?”

“I don’t think I did,” Blake said.

“But you do have one?”

“Not yet,” Blake said, because there were cameras watching them. They both knew Deva had been trying to pick the lock on the cuffs around Blake’s wrists since Blake had managed to get the laser probe out of lining of Deva’s tunic and pressed it into his hand. Blake assumed that Deva, like himself, was trying to cover this activity by pretending they didn’t have a plan. On the other hand, the cuff-picking didn’t seem to be going very well since Deva’s hands were chained behind his back, too, and he was having to do the whole thing blind. Perhaps he really was hoping Blake had another plan.

“I’m working on it,” Blake told him, “but I also face the possibility that this may be the last time _I_ go on a simple fact finding mission. If we don’t think of something soon, it’ll be too late – the virus will already have taken hold.”

Behind him Deva gave a sigh that made it clear he’d hoped for better things, and that this hope that just died. The laser probe slipped and dug into Blake’s hands – possibly on purpose; perhaps just because it had slipped in some icing.

“On the other hand, if we _do_ get out of this,” Blake continued in a more bracing tone, “we more than justified the trip. I had some idea that something was going on here, but I had no idea it was this bad.”

His suspicions had first been aroused by the heavy computer-based locks that been installed on all the outer doors of the bakery about a week ago. On Gauda Prime, it made sense to lock your doors at night, and often during the day, to avoid the bounty hunters and the other unsavoury characters who roamed the moors, but the shops were generally the exception, because they were – well, shops. People tended to want to go in and out on a fairly regular basis. No cash was left in the buildings over night, and everyone knew that, and so they could get away with minimal security. So Blake, walking past the now overly secure bakery on the way to pick up another ex-loyalist, had noted it as a potential trouble-spot that he should target as soon as possible. He’d had to take Deva with him to get past the locks, something they both now regretted.

“Is there a _reason_ they took your clothes?” Deva asked, as though this was adding insult to injury.

“Standard intimidation tactic,” Blake guessed. “They’ll be back to question us later when we’re scared and probably shivering with fever. They didn’t bother to strip you, because you were clearly intimidated enough already.”

He didn’t mention that he’d had a dream rather like this, once – except in the dream his computer expert had been naked as well, rather than just him. And the computer expert hadn’t been Deva, it had been someone else. And the cake they were both covered in hadn’t been dosed with lethal viruses designed to wipe out GP’s native population through a show of friendship – it had just been cake. He didn’t mention this dream because he had a strong suspicion Deva would prefer _not_ to know about it, even if he had been the sort of person who liked to hear about other people’s dreams, which he wasn’t.

“Any sensible person _would_ be intimidated,” Deva muttered. “Given that they had guns and we’d just broken into their property. I hope you take from this, bounty hunter, that I consider you to be the opposite of a sensible person.”

Despite everything, Blake chuckled – he couldn’t be sure but he thought that Deva had sounded almost positive. “It has been said.”

Yes – there was the click of the locking mechanism and the cuffs around Blake’s wrists loosened.

“What now?” Deva said in a lower voice than before.

“Phase two,” Blake murmured.

Not very helpful to Deva, as he didn’t know what phase two was, but hopefully it would be reassuring to know that there _was_ a phase two. The second half of the plan in Blake’s mind was that he would force the old-fashioned lock on the storeroom door. Unlike the outer locks, this one hadn’t been replaced, and it was the same metal-in-wood lock that had been there twenty years before when the Federation had (officially) left. He’d have to move quickly because as soon as he stood up the cameras would spot him, but at least he’d been given a weapon.

Unwilling to identify themselves as Federation troopers, the workers here did not wear helmets – that meant that they would be just as sensitive to the viruses in the cake as Blake and Deva were. Blake had noticed they’d all worn gloves while tipping the cake over him earlier. The viruses wouldn’t take hold quickly enough to actually incapacitate any of the soldiers during battle (Blake had been covered in cake for the last thirty minutes and could only feel a slight tremor in his limbs), but the psychological effects would be enough to make them pause, and that was something. 

Blake scooped a handful of cake from where it had congregated at his elbow into his hand. He eyed the door, gauging where the weakest point would be, and was about to test that theory when he heard steps outside the door. Even better – the Federation were coming to open the door. How thoughtful.

A click of a key in a lock, and then the door creaked open. Judging that his attackers would be most off guard as they crossed the threshold, still juggling keys and weapons and anything else they were bringing in (interrogation materials, presumably), Blake surged to his feet. He’d already drawn his hand back and was about to loose the cake, when the man on the other side shouted,

“Hold your fire, Blake – it’s me! It’s Bellfriar.”

Blake only just managed to pull his arm back, icing squelching in his hand. “What? Bellfriar? What on Earth are you doing here?” He was almost laughing – well, well, Doctor Bellfriar. Looking only slightly the worse for wear, an amazing achievement since the Liberator crew had heard him collapse over the comm channel. “We thought you were dead.”

“What’s going on?” Deva demanded, trying to twist around in his chair to get a better look.

“I heard _you_ were dead,” Bellfriar said, gripping Blake’s arm. “Actually, it looks like you will be if we don’t manage to get you the antivirus in the next hour or so. Fortunately it’s quite a simple formula, once you know what it is – I dare say I can whip it up for you if you have a base with basic medical supplies. I assume you _can_ spring me from this place?”

“We were just working that out, weren’t we, Deva?” Blake said, glancing back at his friend.

“And we were doing quite well until you stopped to chat,” Deva said, finishing work on the lock off his own cuffs, “and shout your name around in a known Federation base. _Is_ there actually a phase two of this plan, bounty hunter?”

“Actually there is,” Blake said. “Although there’s less of it now the research and presumably their means of making additional virus has come to us and asked to be rescued. Thank you, doctor – I do appreciate it. Makes everything so much easier. Would you mind stepping into the room for a moment?”

“Hm?” Bellfriar said. “Oh, yes, of course--”

“Thank you,” Blake said, and stepped forward into the gap that he’d left so that he could get a good shot at the man who’d just appeared behind the corner. A smooth overarm saw the handful of virus-laden cake slamming into the centre of guard’s face like a snowball. He shouted and staggered back, and Blake followed, wrestling the man’s gun out of his hands and smacking him over the head with the barrel of it. He fired as the man fell – no sense in allowing any of them to get up again.

“Find the external doors,” he told Deva, “open them and get out.” He pressed the gun into Bellfriar’s hands. “And you - cover him while he gets the doors open.”

“All right. But what will you be doing?”

“I brought a large quantity of explosives with me into this base – I’d hate to leave them behind,” Blake explained. “And I don’t want to leave any of the virus around either – it could do a lot of damage, even with the quantities you’ve made already, doctor.” He scooped some cake off Deva’s shoulder, and clapped him on the other. “See you both outside in ten minutes.”

“Try looking for your _clothes_ while you’re at it,” Deva shouted after him as he turned to leave.

“I was going to ask,” Bellfriar said, “but it didn’t seem polite. Now you’ve brought it up … er, why …?”

Deva shrugged. “Standard intimidation tactic, apparently,” he explained as the two of them watched Blake throwing another handful of cake into a trooper’s face and then slamming him into a wall.

“He doesn’t … _seem_ very intimidated,” Bellfriar observed.

“It has been said,” Deva agreed sourly. "It has definitely been said."


End file.
